The first time I saw D, I knew I had to have him. We worked at the same hotel, in different departments, and would flirt constantly. I would confidently tell my co-workers “I’m going to fuck him.” They would laugh, but I wasn’t joking—he was going to be mine. After a few months of flirting I finally had an opportunity to nonchalantly ask him out to a bar after work. It was a month before my twenty-first birthday and he snuck me in by giving a twenty to the bouncer (it’s like a bro-code: you have to help your fellow bro hook up with the underage girl by letting her into the bar). During the first few months of dating, all we did was eat, drink, and screw: it was bliss. When things got more serious, and people would ask when we were going to have kids, my boyfriend would always respond “We’re just practicing” and wink at me. But all of those years of practicing didn’t prepare us for the reality of sex after a baby.
I’ve always been DTF (if you have to look that up, I’m sorry) and was not at all concerned about getting down while pregnant. My boyfriend, on the other hand, got a bit apprehensive towards the end because the baby had dropped considerably and he didn’t want to “poke an eye out.” Positions started to become a challenge with my ever-growing bump. Pregnant women are not supposed to lie on their backs (apparently as your uterus gets heavier, it can potentially cut off the circulation to a major vein going through your body), so that ruled out a couple of standbys. Then, my belly got too big for me to be on top without it pushing into him and him feeling our daughter’s kicks, which totally freaked him out. But, overall, I remember very much enjoying myself, often even more so than our pre-pregnancy romps. The sex dreams weren’t bad either…
We tried to have “relations” before my due date because we knew it would be quite a while before we could again (longer than we had ever gone before… it was depressing to think about). Doctors recommend that women wait six weeks after giving birth to have vaginal intercourse again and I knew I couldn’t wait that long to get it on. After two weeks, neither of us wanted to wait any longer, but D had witnessed the distress my lady-parts had been put through, and, despite his desire, forced me to wait. We made it another week before we couldn’t take it anymore. I won’t go into vivid details, but it was really great—that is, until we changed positions, and my va-jay-jay was not having it. The most embarrassing part is that we had to put our daughter down in her swing on the floor, and she would not stop crying (she did eventually, but it was awkward for a little bit). Sometimes we have to take drastic measures to fulfill our carnal desires, I guess.
In those three weeks pre-nasty and post-baby, I started reading up on it a bit. I was shocked to find out that many new moms wait months, or even a year after giving birth to have sex with their partners again. It can be pretty difficult to feel sexy after having just pushed a tiny person out of your body, dealing with the pressure to lose the “baby weight,” earning chapped nipples from breastfeeding, and getting little to no sleep. Not to mention, a lot of women tear or rip during delivery (I did), which can make you feel damaged or insecure. I have accepted the fact that my vagina will never be the same, but I couldn’t be happier with what I gained. I did my kegels—and I will be perfectly honest that it took a while before it felt “normal” again downstairs. But, since then, sex has felt even better than before.
Even once the healing has completed, and your partner has patiently waited for his or her turn, another road block is put up: being a mom is a legitimate full-time job, especially in the beginning. Your newborn is 100% dependent on you, and your focus and all of your energy goes to them. There were countless nights where we would say that tonight would be the night we would have some “sexy time,” just to pass out not long after getting in bed. I can remember times when D would come up behind me and would try to start feeling me up and I would disregard him or push him away—totally consumed with cleaning the baby’s bottles and my breast pump for the next day so I could finally go to sleep. Some women are hardwired to put their offspring before anyone else, and their partners bear the burden of being forgotten. It took a long time for me to realize that I was being inadvertently negligent and wasn’t giving him the attention he needed in and out of the bedroom.
When you get down to it, sex is a big part of why you got together with your co-parent in the first place, and it’s how you made that screaming child who is now cock-blocking you from having more. Overcoming the exhaustion and chaos of post-baby life can be insanely difficult but, without intimacy, we would just be roommates or really good friends raising a kid together. At first, putting myself ahead of my child made me feel like a bad parent, but I continually remind myself that I can’t be the best mom I can be unless my needs and the needs of my partner are met, too. We may not be humping like rabbits anymore, but we do our best to keep the fire alive and our passion for each other strong through the many hurdles of parenting.
Photo by Willow Rose